Monday, 23 March 2015

Making sure
readers actually care what happens to your main character is integral to any
story. You can’t just take it for granted that just because your story has
stuff happen to a guy that the reader will automatically be interested.

If your story
happens to be about a noble main character who has exciting adventures this is
less of a worry since this is the basic story archetype from fairy tales and
myths, but not all stories follow this template.

While the simplest way
to endear your MC to the reader is to demonstrate their general decency, what’s
sometimes referred to as a pat the dog or save the cat moment—the MC goes out
of their way to be helpful to some innocent in trouble and their good guy
credentials are confirmed—not all main characters are straight out of a
Disney family movie.

Fortunately
there are a number of other ways to boost your hero’s general appeal.

The Superhero

Some characters
are just good at everything. They have exactly the right set of skills for the
problems they face and are able to overcome obstacles with ease.

The most common
way to counteract any resentment of a know-it-all clever clogs is to make the
stakes incredibly high. James Bond is saving the world, he needs to be expert
at everything.

You can also use details. If our hero takes down twelve ninjas single-handed, how did
he do it? The more unexpected his moves, the less focus on his ridiculous
abilities. So grabbing an iron poker from the fireplace is perfectly plausible;
using a pencil from his kid’s schoolbag is more interesting.

Unnecessary but cool
details can also add something, like Indiana Jones taking an extra risk to grab
his hat. Our hero using a pencil sharpener before stabbing his attacker is
unlikely but more entertaining.

The Downtrodden

In many cases a
hero will start out in difficult circumstances. No money, horrible family,
never lucky. It’s more than likely someone with this kind of background would
be angry, bitter and self-pitying. Realistic as it may be, these kinds of
emotions don’t translate well.

They are far
more engrossing for the person feeling them than the ones hearing about them
and it would be a mistake to think it’s okay because later on things turn
around. Readers who get irritated by a character now don’t generally hang around
to see if the misery continues or not.

You can get round
this by making the character upbeat rather than defeated. Cinderella, Harry
Potter, Charlie (of Chocolate Factory fame) all had plenty to be mad about, but
handled their troubles with good grace, and then took their opportunities when
they could.

The Lovely and
the Beautiful

The pretty girl
who gets all the boys is not going to impress much if your target audience is
mostly female. Even if she’s really nice and helps old people across the
street, she’s already won the lottery, now she wants to be the centre of
attention too?

There are two
popular ways to approach this. Either she’s in a world of other gorgeous people
who are horrible to her because of something that’s not her fault (e.g. she’s
poor and they’re all blinged up), which makes her more likeable by default.

Or,
alternatively, she (somehow) gets all the advantages of being super-hot while only being slightly
above average in the looks department. Simply downgrading her attractiveness
not only doesn’t stop the two hottest guys in town fighting over her, it
actually fits very well into most women’s insecurities about their own looks.

Both of the
above approaches are horribly overused and yet perfectly viable. There is an
appetite for stories about moderately attractive women who find love with hot
and/or rich guys, and for stories about hot girls who are treated unfairly by
even hotter girls.

Another
approach, though, is to give the girl something she cares about more than
finding Mr Right. So prosecuting a murderer, finding a lost artefact, solving
the Middle East crisis—anything that isn’t based on her looks will help.

She can still
have relationship issues, but if that’s her priority her physical appearance
will have more influence than you might want.

The Blowhard

Characters who
have lots of opinions and observations about life—usually a way for the writer
to express their own insights—can become overbearing and preachy, even when it’s
meant to be humorous.

The obvious
way to prevent this is to have a lot going on in the character’s life. If they’re
busy doing stuff, then their views can add to the story, providing voice, tone,
mood, etc. Balance is important though.

Something else
you can do to make it feel integral to the story, rather than tacked on, is to
have the story directly challenge the character’s viewpoint. This requires the
character to have a somewhat focused set of ideas (i.e. they're obsessed with one thing in particular).

So, a character
who thinks women are just interested in guys with money meets a woman who makes
him rethink his beliefs. Or a guy who believes aliens control the government
finds himself embroiled in a plot to stop a galactic war.

The sooner you
can establish his worldview, the sooner you can make life dismantle them, which
is when the fun starts.

The Scaredy Cat

Some characters
are defined by a fear they have. This fear will play a major role in the story
ahead, but at the start of the story it can just be about showing the fear an d they're inability to overcome it.

Establishing
this fear is necessary, but if you show this through inaction (they’re so
scared they can’t act) it isn’t particularly interesting an d the character can come across as weak and feeble.

For example, if
our main character is deathly scared of heights and later in the story she has
to climb up a cliff face to save her child, then earlier in the story you might
have a scene where the same character has to climb a ladder to get a toy stuck
in a tree and just can’t do it.

By showing how
extreme her fear is, her eventual overcoming it to save her daughter becomes
that much more tense and engaging.

But a woman
stuck on the first rung of a ladder unable to move isn’t the most dynamic of
scenes.

Rather than have
a character paralysed by an irrational fear, you can actually have them show a
little bravery in that first scene and for it to go horribly wrong. This
failure will not only reinforce their fear, making it even harder for them to accomplish
their eventual goal, but it also gives the reader pause for thought when they
realise the fear isn’t quite so irrational.

You like someone
more if they at least try, and you have more concern for them when the fear is
real and they’ve already failed once, especially if it cost them something.

Conan. You got me with the Conan pic. Damn. ;) The hero in my story is full of flaws, but I'm afriad I've gone overboard and it's making it hard to like her. She's going to have to pet a lot of dogs...